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26 May 2014
19 May 2014
Godz and Monsters
I really wish I could think of a better
metaphor for this film than the one I'm about to describe but I can't so
bollocks to it. Apologies in advance... So, you know what's fun? Fucking. Ugh
God, way too crude... Oh well. There's surely no denying that hiding your
modesty inside somebody else’s modesty is good fun for all involved- oh and,
for the record, I'm completely open to any offers right now. That last bit is
irrelevant to the point that I'm building towards but you know... In my on-going
efforts to get some, it can't hurt. I can't imagine that there's anything a
girl loves more than a desperate geek! Ugh... Why do I even fucking bother.
Anyway, so we live in a world in which every second of every day somebody is
using some form of advertising to trick us into giving them some money.
Considering everybody likes sex, it seems that the marketing goons have decided
that the best way to do this is by bombarding us with sexual imagery and having
us in a constant state of horniness. This is fine for adults but obviously kids
are exposed to it all too, meaning that thanks to a barrage of provocative
slogans and pictures of unobtainable titties, the concept of shagging is made
to seem like the most important thing in the world... Until you actually do it.
Now don't get me wrong, the first time I convinced somebody to take pity on me
was great.. but that's all sex is. It's great. It's not magical or the be-all-and-end-all
or even particularly life changing. It's just really good fun. And that, in a
nutshell, is the problem with Godzilla.
12 May 2014
Everybody Needs Good Neighbours
Like you, I couldn’t care less
whether my neighbours lived or died. Obviously I’m not a psychopath so I’d
prefer for them to remain in some state of happy consciousness but in honesty,
they have so little impact on my life that I can’t see how their survival is my
problem. I’m sure that makes me sound like a dick but if I were you, I’d look
more towards the bigger picture to see how capitalism and social networking
have pushed us towards a selfish society that’s smothered by a sense of
isolation… That and during my youth if I accidentally kicked a ball over the
fence then some of them would be cocks about giving it back, so fuck them. On
my list of priorities, I’d say that my neighbour's ability to remain alive is
somewhere above me remembering to put the bin out this week but definitely
below getting around to finally watching The Wire. There’s a family that lives
next door to me that I honestly don’t think I’ve seen in months. Maybe by
chance we’ve just managed to avoid each other or maybe they’re rotten corpses
are lying on the other side of my wall having chocked to death in a ritualistic
orgy of drugs and bestiality. Either way they’re keeping the noise down so I’ll
leave them to it.
 |
| Taxi Driver 2: Son of a Bickle |
I’d like to say at this point
that I love seeing films that are new to me and so even if I didn’t
particularly like something that’s not to say I can’t appreciate the experience
of having seen it. With that in mind it brings me no pleasure to have to report
that in my humble opinion Bad Neighbours was
a little bit shit. I mean it’s not awful and is nowhere near as bad as the Jack and Jill style of comedic diarrhoea
that Adam Sandler has been pumping out for the majority of his career. But I’m
a fan of Seth Rogen and compared to some of his films like SuperBad and Pineapple
Express for me this really doesn’t compete. I think there are four main
reasons for this which are its lack of heart, the lack of discipline, the lack
of surprises and the fact that all the female characters mostly have to do is
have nice tits. Although to be fair with the exception of those that have milk
shooting out of them or a baby clamped on the women did have some nice tits.
So to start with the lack of
discipline I think this comes down to the script and how there doesn’t seem to
fucking be one. Rogen’s comedies often have an improvised feel to them which is
fine but that still requires something more technical than sticking people
together getting them to chat shit and then hoping for the best. There are
conversations here in which the bollocks spews from characters mouths and
although it teases the potential of humour it generally ends up going on for
way too long. The cast of This is Spinal
Tap tend to improvise their comedies but you can still tell that the
material has been trailed and scrutinised beforehand. The Office too feels improvised although according to interviews I
hear that the naturalistic dialogue and performances were simply the result of
Gervais and Merchants really well written scripts. My point is that I’m not
simply bitching that Bad Neighbours doesn’t
sound like it was written by the bastard off-spring of Shane Black and Oscar
Wilde but rather that it simply could have done with a little more
self-control.
As for the lack of heart… well
this ironically might have helped me get over that previous issue. As I
mentioned before I do really like Super
Bad and Pineapple Express however
they clearly also place the same level of importance on their scripts as Mel
Gibson does on not being a mental racist. Despite their obvious indulgences
though the one thing that they have to hook me in is likeable characters and
slightly touching relationships. Whether it be Jonah Hill and Michael Cera or
Seth Rogen and James Franco, I’m kind of a sucker for films that depict the
sweetness of two friends strengthening their bond. I think films about male
friendship are to me what rom-coms are to lonely women who spend their nights
crying fat tears of regret into a tasty tub of ice-cream. In Bad Neighbours however there are I suppose
three main relationships… there’s the one between Rogen and his wife Rose
Byrne, Rogen and his neighbour Zac Efron and another between Efron and mate
Dave Franco. Out of all of those though the only one that comes close to being
either interesting or memorable is the one between Rogen and Efron as the film
hints towards a kind of big brother/little brother thing between the two. In
fact for me the highlight of the movie was their drunken bonding session in
which they ate magic mushrooms, got wankered, argued about who made the best
Batman and then had a swordfight with their piss. Sadly though this only lasts
like one scene before the two are pitted against each other and the film
descends into dull, slapstick bollocks.
Rogen is a family man whose
jealous of Efrons freedom and Efron is a dick because he’s worried about his
future. If there’s one thing I like more than male bonding it’s a film in which
the message seems to be that no matter who or how old you are life will always
be shite. Both this idea and their relationship are in my opinion two really
great starting points for a film. However like I say the slapstick takes
precedence over this which would be fine if it wasn’t for one thing… They
fucking ruined it for us before we even started watching the fucking movie. Yes
I like films about both relationships and nihilism but as Buster Keaton and
Charlie Chaplin have proven there’s still an art to getting a laugh from having
somebody get accidentally twat in the head. However the one thing that this therefore
requires is the element of surprise. If I’m going to be honest this probably
isn’t the kind of film I’d go out of my way to see but I’d seen basically
everything out right now and me and my friends needed something to do for the
day. My point is that before seeing this film I had
about as much interest in Bad Neighbours as the film had for
using it’s script for anything more than a shitrag.
However because I’d seen so many
other films recently I’d been forced to see the trailer for this film so many
times that I already knew most of the fucking jokes. Did I laugh at the stuff
with the airbags or the baby eating a condom? Well yeah… I tittered about a
month ago when I saw it out of context in the trailer but not now. If I was
seeing it fresh then I’m sure the panic in a parents face as they spot their
offspring cheerfully chowing down on what looks like a rubber jizz bag would be
hilarious. So I guess my advice would be that if the plot is going to waffle
and the dialogue is indulgently long then don’t stick all the fucking slapstick
jokes in the trailer as that’s literally all there is left to enjoy. It’s like
a porn film trying to sell itself by sticking all of the nudity in the trailer
when the rest of the film consists of a fully clothed woman chatting to some
bloke about the broken boiler. Sorry love but I’ve already seen your flange and
I spaffed about two minutes ago. To conclude… if you’ve seen this films trailer
then you’ve seen this film.
 |
| Today's spot the difference competition! Write in when you find them all! |
6 May 2014
The Spider's Feeling Blue
There’s so much about the second Spider-Man
movie that I love that I almost don’t know where to start. To put it frankly-
it’s a masterpiece. A hero is, I suppose,
judged against his nemeses and here we have a more-than-menacing villain for
Spidey to be tested against and also possibly his most iconic. However, rather
than being a dribbling fucknugget, this baddie has wit and even to some degree
a sympathetic human side that allows us to slightly understand the reasons
behind his demented but enjoyable murder spree. However that’s not to say we
don’t also get exposed to the burden of balancing the webslinging lifestyle of
a hero with the real-life existence of being a cash-desperate member of society
who wants nothing more than to have a roof over his head and a loving partner
with flesh-holes, consent and a box of tissues. The action too is out of this
world with the film’s legendary director at possibly the height of his career,
having managed to seamlessly blend blockbuster thrills with that distinctive
style that has of course led to him being one of the most influential
filmmakers of our generation. I am of course talking about Sam Raimi and his
film Spider-Man 2 which came out ten years ago. There’s only one
Spider-Man 2 and for anybody who thought that I've been talking about the
latest edition to this unnecessarily rebooted franchise… Obviously I wasn’t,
now fuck you!
Anyway, they’ve made it now and so I
guess we may as well talk about it… So The Amazing Spiderman 2 tells the
story of Peter Parker as he attempts to battle a sympathetic villain whilst
maintaining his relationship with a girl that’s clearly out of his league. To
quote the great Morrissey, ‘stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one
before’. This time however the pain in the arse itch-in-need-of-arachno-boy’s
sticky-fingered-scratch is Jamie Fox’s gravelly voiced, panto-twat Electro. If
you somehow haven’t seen any of the million trailers that feature him, then
imagine him as the third member of a slightly shit boy-band alongside
Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze and Billy Crudup’s Dr Manhattan. I don’t know what
that band would be called but with big bald heads and unnaturally blue skin
it’d be a bit like if you dragged the lifeless corpses of Right Said Fred's only
three fans out from the bottom of a toxic lake. Anyway, so there’s Electro and
then also Spider-Man’s best friend Harry who just kind of shows up out of the
err… blue, and who then turns evil too. Hmm I didn't mean that to rhyme
although I guess that line could be a taster of the kind of lyrics you'd hear
from Electro's boy-band. Oh, and I know by the way that telling you Harry turns
evil is a spoiler but it's been in all of the trailers so fuck it!
Anyway,
so in my humble opinion, the first film in this new franchise was alright but
in no way justified a reboot especially as it'd mean that we're now deprived of
Toby Maguire’s hilarious screwed up running/angry cum face. If there was
anything the last film did well it was to not kill off its main villain and to
cast Andrew Garfield in the main role. Other than that though, it went over the
exact same ground as Raimi’s first Spider-Man which, to someone as old
and decrepit as a 25 year old called ‘me’, doesn’t exactly seem that long ago.
So now, free from the constraints of telling a common knowledge origin story,
does this sequel yet justify the need for a reboot? As the opening paragraphs
probably hint towards… well, not really but I suppose it's getting there.
Ignoring that though, is the film even any good? To summarise, meh, it's okay. The
Amazing Spider-Man 2 is no Spider-Man 2 but then not much is I
suppose. On the bright side, Andrew Garfield is still great in the role
although he's probably less Peter Parker than Toby Maguire was. Seems as you're
now about three paragraphs into this film blog, I'm guessing you're either a
friend of mine that I've forced to read or a stranger to me whose also a bit of
a fucking geek. Either way, I'm sure you'll probably know that in the comics
Parker was meant to be the nerdy underdog, however with his confidence and lack
of bad-looks here there's no denying that Garfield is always cool. Not really a
problem particularly, as films are more than welcome to alter things during
their adaptation and we're still left with an brilliant performance from him,
but I just thought I'd point it out. The same is also true of Aunt May who is
played here by the amazing Sally Field who always seems like she'd be one of
the loveliest people in the world to actually know. This is in stark contrast
to the Aunt May of Raimi's films who was so annoying that if I was Spider-Man,
there's no way I'd be able to live with her and her bullshit advice without
snapping one night and holding a pillow over her wrinkled old face to shut her
the fuck up.
 |
| This skanky little bitch has definitely got the bad AIDS! |
So like me on my nineteenth birthday
Electro is nothing special, and Green Goblin is sadly neglected but what about
Rhino? …That was a fucking grim sentence wasn't it? Talk about needy! Anyway, in
all honesty Rhino has a screen time of about one nano-second and that's fine.
Although for the record I think that Giamatti is so amazing in how ridiculous his
performance as the Russian goon is that I honestly think it could do more
damage to the West’s relationship with Putin than the fucking Ukraine crisis. However as fun as he is, he's here to serve two purposes and that's to
firstly bookend the film with a little extra action and secondly to lead
towards this Sinister Six film that they're now banging on about. This
is, I suppose, where the question of whether this film yet justifies the reboot
can possibly be answered. As a movie on its own The Amazing Spider-Man 2 doesn't
really do anything new at all, however what it does do is start to pave the way
to this expanded universe of multiple sequels and spin-offs that are about to
start getting churned out. This obviously wouldn't have been possible with
Raimi's films because the villains in his movies all ended up fucked and dead.
However if the justification for the reboot was to allow for a larger universe,
you've got to question if this is even something we want? Just because
something works for Marvel Studios doesn't mean it'll work for every franchise
in which a slightly mental do-gooder puts on a mask and goes out to punch arse
holes in the face. I think we're also getting too close to a point of
oversaturation within this genre with each year having more comic book movies than
John Goodman's had hot dinners... well, maybe not that many but you get my point. Personally I think films should be
made because there's a story to tell and not as how it seems here, and even
with this whole Batman Versus Superman thing because The Avengers shat
out a fuck load of cash. Having said that, a Sinister Six film sounds
intriguing because it's got a good writer and director attached and I've just
no idea what it'll be. In a world in which the same old shit is dumped into
some glitter and then thrown at the screen, this new Spider-Man Cinematic
Universe I suppose has some potential. It's just a shame that where this film
is concerned, they prioritised sign posts for their future over something as
basic as you know... any fucking story what-so-ever.
So yeah, the film’s pretty good so
long as you're in the mood for something fun but unoriginal.. and it does have
a nice central relationship between Peter Parker and his on/off girlfriend Gwen
Stacey. I've avoided talking about them because on the one hand they were my
favourite part of the film but on the other it's a massive fuck-off spoiler to
say anything. I enjoyed the two characters when they were together and I
enjoyed that Peter was constantly getting cock-blocked by the ghost of his
girlfriend’s dead Dad. In fact, thinking about it, every-bodies Dad seems to be
dead in this film. Peter, Gwen, Harry and unless there's a 200 year old man
knocking about somewhere, presumably Aunt May too are all fatherless. Shame the
film didn't explore that as a theme either. Oh well. But yeah... I won't say
what happens, but the thing revolving around the future of Peter and Gwen’s
relationship at the end of the film was an amazing scene and probably my
favourite. I also really loved the fucking weird score too by the way. For once,
Hans Zimmer has done something that doesn't sound like Gladiator with
Electro's theme being particularly cool. It probably helps for me that Johnny
Marr was involved and to reference
Morrissey again, I'm such a huge fan of The Smiths that it's probably
for the best that, like Electro's pre-blue self, I've never read Catcher In
The Rye either. If you ever see me wandering the streets at two in the
morning, the odds are I'm listening to a soundtrack whilst slightly blitzed
with The Amazing Spider-Man’s being a
current favourite. To keep the positive theme up, the action was also really
good and although director Mark Webb is no Sam Raimi, he manages to retain the
excitement of Spidey's swinging by throwing in so much slow motion that it
always looks cool and just about avoids becoming a pain in the balls.
 |
| "Pull my finger!" |
28 April 2014
Finish With All Your Gobbledygook
Religion has brought so much good to this
world that it's no surprise that people are open enough to believe in it. Just
look at the great works of art, the literature and the millions of lives that
have been given some sort of comfort. Of course, where the Catholic Church is
concerned, there's the small matter of its fondness for child rape to put a
small downer on things, but I guess that's just swings and roundabouts isn't
it? Err- no, obviously it isn't. The whole church-pedo-thing is fucked up
beyond belief, with more effort seeming to be placed on hushing it up than
stamping it out. I swear that only the other year, in the church down the road
from me, the priest was caught mid blow-job with a boy in his care. Not only that
but a friend who has relatives that attended that church told me that his
family were apparently more concerned by when the abuse started in case it
meant that they had an impure Priest perform the ceremony at their wedding. I
mean, what the actual fuck? I'm sure
religion has brought some good to the world but at the end of the day I'm also
sure that we all have to agree that it's really more trouble than it's worth.
To quote the great Billy Connolly who was himself a victim of child abuse and
for which he also holds the Catholic Church accountable, “that's it for me-
religion is fucking finished. That's it, it's fucking over lads. It's fucking
over! You've had a couple of thousand years, you've fucked it, it's over. It's
fucking over! So take your reformation, your Vatican, your fucking Mecca and
fuck off”.
So... Calvary is the latest film to
star the always amazing Brendan Gleeson and originated from the psychotically
dark mind of writer/director John Michael McDonagh. It tells the story of the
one good Priest in an area full of selfish arseholes who are all intent on
abusing him in some way for the various atrocities being committed by the
Catholic Church. Whereas most people are simply content to verbally punish or
belittle him, the film begins during confession when one angry fucknugget goes
one further and informs the priest that he's going to kill him in seven days
time. His murder however won't be a revenge attack for one of his own past
crimes but rather because the would-be-killer had also previously been abused
and feels it'd send a stronger message if he killed a good priest rather than a
bad one. Within the first thirty seconds, the entire film has now been laid out
as Father James then potters about his local area whilst trying to help the
various scummy people wherever he can and yet also coming to terms with the
possibility of his own upcoming death. I can honestly say that if this film was
an emotional roller-coaster then it couldn't have been more of a ride had they
replaced the chairs with the raging hard-on of a weeping sex-pest. I'm
currently writing this blog at midnight on April the twentieth and as of now Calvary
is by far my favourite film of the year. Perhaps even of the last couple of
years. I'm in awe. Oh, and yes, for those who looked it up, that does means I'm
writing a film blog at the peak social hours of a Saturday night but you
know... Fuck you!
 |
| I retract that bit about your cunt fucking kids... |
Anyway, I saw In Bruges when it
first came out a few years ago and it has also since become one of my top ten
favourite films of all time. That was of course directed by Martin and not John
Michael McDonagh however having now seen all of their movies it seems that the
two brothers have a lot in common. Both make the darkest and most bleak- but
hilarious- comedies that deal with themes such as guilt, duty and forgiveness
and generally revolve around an Irish actor at the centre of it. And by Irish
actor I guess I mean Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson or both of them. The two
directors can also be quite self referential at times too, with Martin
Mcdonagh's Seven Psychopaths basically being a film about a writer
called Martin who is writing the film that he's unknowingly in. Even here with Calvary,
characters comment on everything from the opening line of the movie, they
discuss which of them is an interesting character and which is clichéd and they
also try to second guess what they actually refer to as the upcoming 'third act
revelations'. I don't want to spoil too much but for what are presumably sold
as comedies, each one of their four films has a fucking grim-as-fuck ending to
it too. Particularly in the case of In Bruges and Calvary too,
half of the jokes aren't even jokes with both films really being more like
downbeat, melancholic dramas but with an obvious sense of the absurdity of
life. I guess my point to all of this is to suggest that the McDonaghs must
have had some seriously fucked up parents... and thank god they did because
their work is amazing.
I've read a fair few reviews of Calvary since
seeing it and pretty much all of them have gushed over it as much as I am now.
However, the one slight criticism I've read is that perhaps it has some minor
tonal inconsistencies to it but I disagree. I mean- yes, this is a film with a
laugh out loud scene in which a weird young man argues that he should be
allowed join the army because his desire kill women is basically a
qualification, and yet, at the same time, there are scenes of such sadness and
emotion that I was honestly holding back tears at times. I mean, I suppose I
could have just had a little cry but you know... I was with friends, I'm young,
male and British so fuck that! However for me, the balance seemed just right
with the first half being more about the jokes and the second half simply being
the observations of the shitness of life. I think if there's one scene that
sums this film up then it's one in which a coffin is being wheeled to a plane
for transportation. At first, the sheer lack of dignity as the corpse is
trollied over seems quite funny, however when Father James looks again, the two
baggage handlers in charge are now leaning over the coffin and chatting before
it can be loaded on board. What was originally fairly amusing becomes
heartbreaking as, along with James, we see the emptiness of life in all its
pointlessness. I mean, maybe I'm wrong but the journey from jokes to melancholy
seemed perfectly natural to me. Compare this to Tarantino's Inglorious
Bastards for example which would go from a tense scene of Jewish abuse at
the hands of the Nazis to one in which Mike Myers did his Austin Powers schtick
and Calvary will look like a tonal fucking masterpiece... but then again,
by comparison so would most films, I suppose.
As I said, this film is an emotional
roller-coaster which, as well as the director, is also thanks to the
mesmerising performance of Brendan Gleeson whose huge talent is only matched in
size by his huge ears. Seriously- check them out. The man he plays isn't a
saint but rather a human trying to do his best below that shroud of misery that
smothers our lives. He's the one man attempting to show that the Church isn't
the child-fucking-nonce-fest that it's presumed to be and as a result every
member of that town is trying to break him to validate their own positions on
the matter. However, as he absorbs all of their abuse and even their problems,
and tries to counter it, you get the sense that actually they don't want to
beat him. As much as they're trying to justify their own cynical positions, he
represents hope to them and at the end of the day they need him to give them a
chance of redemption. Gleeson's priest is basically a piñata at a party of the
angriest, brattiest children who might be hitting him as hard as they can to
vent their frustrations by hurting him but secretly they really just want to
eat his sweets and enjoy the party. Okay.. not sure if that analogy works and
it's also kind of weird but fuck it, you get the point.
Speaking of the locals, it's also worth
stating how amazing some of the performances surrounding Gleeson are with
randomly small but memorable performances from Dylan Moran, Aidan Gillen, Chris
O'Dowd and some creepy looking old coffin dodger that I later realised was M.
Emmet Walsh. I haven't seen Walsh in anything since Blade Runner and he
looked old then and yet it seems in the subsequent few decades he's managed to
age even more into what looks like creepy, porn addicted hobbit. Still good
though, and I suppose he's in his late fucking seventies so it'd probably be
weirder if he didn't look old. In fact, you've got to just presume that all of
these people have turned up solely as a result of the writing which is up there
with The Coen's at their best and easily matches the genius that people wrongly
credit Tarantino for being.
 |
| It's easy to moan about how easy it is to make fun of their religion... That should be a clue... |
Anyway, I don't want to say much more
because I'd hate to give away the ending and I'd hate to just spoil everything
that made me laugh. Although, I do think that it's ironic that Aronofsky's Noah
is the film that's causing the most controversy at the moment seems as all that
movie did was try and make the religious fairy-story seem a little more believable.
Considering that this is an angry film with genuine issues that the Church
needs to address you've got to wonder where the outrage and attempted
censorship is here? Is it that religious people only get mad when the film that
they believe is offensive to them has a bigger budget or perhaps more likely is
it that in the case of Calvary they've actually got something to be
ashamed of? With its mass marketing, there's no way that Noah is going
to go away but perhaps if it's just ignored then Calvary's accusations
of the Church’s evil just might... for now. There's nothing left for either of
us to do now except just go and see this film again because it's the most
hilarious, profound thing I've seen probably since In Bruges. Apparently
the next 'comedy' that Gleeson and McDonagh will make will centre around an
angry paraplegic, investigating the murder of his best friend. Count me the
fuck in.
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